Since the invention of the "casual gamer", there has been an outcry against the outrageous difficulty level of games. It was assumed that most players, and especially the industry new darlings, the casual gamers, would not finish the games because they were too difficult.

Is that really the case? The whole point of this article is to challenge that huge misconception.

Factually, it is true that until the Playstation era, games were generally too hard to be fun. When a modern game is deemed too difficult by the press, the older gamers laugh thinking of Battletoads. But is it really difficulty that is to blame? Is it the exact reason why people stop playing a game and switch to something else?

This doesn’t make sense. Anyone who reached Bowser’s final castle in Super Mario World would not drop their joypad until the infamous dinosaur (?) king in his ridiculous bouncing balloon is vanquished once and for all, although this is a difficult battle. Why? Because the game is truly compelling.

In fact, gamers like to think that their games are difficult. This gives them a sense of accomplishment and pride. Games developers recognize this. For instance, some games send messages to the player, complimenting them if they do something especially well (i.e. number of chained hits in Devil May Cry). While the message is very positive if the player plays truly well (or is lucky), it will never be negative or even neutral if the player doesn’t try very hard to fight.

What they don’t like and don’t accept is that their games are not fair.

This is a recent concept which, like game genres and casual gaming, has emerged in the early nineties, as gamers started to have a rich choice of games which followed established conventions, and were no longer subject to whatever a developer thought fun to do. The developers were no longer insensitive riddle masters, but were starting to consider players as consumers, too.

Most of these conventions are precisely linked to a genre.

Strikers 1945 III, arcade, 1999.

Now dodge this.

For instance, a shoot’em up player will accept that, in order to see the next level, they have to navigate through a swarm of bullets. But in a game presented as an adventure title, players will not accept having to deal with this kind of gameplay! Similarly, players of what is presented as a fast-paced action game will not accept having to solve some riddle to progress in the game! The reverse holds true - Striker 1945 III is certainly a difficult game, but this is not resented by shoot ’em up players because it is fair.

Myst III, PC, 2001.

Myst III final puzzle. The key is the book you’ve been carrying all along.

In fact, there are plenty of techniques to manage "bullet storms" like this. Likewise, Myst III may be full of obscure riddles, but adventure lovers will enjoy these - for the exact same reason.

More precisely, constraints that the player is willing to accept depend on:

 General "playability" considerations, which affect all games.
 What genres does the game claim to belong to? Most constraints are tied to the genre. This means that players will accept those related to the "perceived" genre, not to some surprise genre. If the last 5 minutes of gameplay of an hypothetical Myst VI were pure shoot’em up action, that would be perceived as very unfair.
 Some rules which are specific to the game. They must be highly visible and preferably implicitly accepted before the game starts. While Diablo is presented as an RPG, it is clear from the box that it is real-time based and requires some mouse action.

Some rules of thumb

 Unwinnable situations are a no-no. Remember Pac Man? trapped in a maze and hunted by 4 ghosts? At any one point, even at level 255 [1], it was always possible to escape the ghosts. They would never "sandwich" the player to a certain death.

The game must not allow the player to sabotage his game. When they are aware that they did something wrong, they will accept to lose then. But they shouldn’t be allowed to take a decision that will make them lose later, inevitably, based on information they don’t have at that moment. That’s forcing them into unwinnable situations.
 If the player loses, the loss shouldn’t be that great. In a time of memory cards and saved games, surely there is a way to prevent the player from starting all over again for just two seconds on inattention. Modern games, structured in short "missions" or "levels" which can be restarted without penalty, is a possible answer to that. MMORPGs also have usually fair penalties for "dying".
 In order for players to accept losing, they must understand why.

Players can lose if they are presented with a "fair" opportunity to do good or wrong and if they do wrong (like: they haven’t dodged that attack, they missed the jump and fell in the pit, etc.).

If they cannot perceive why they died, and how not to die the next time they find themselves in that situation, the game is not fair. In many solo FPS games, the player can be shot by an enemy they haven’t seen. This is tolerated because it is so deeply entrenched in the nature of such games. But to compensate that, those games usually allow the player to use quiksave/quikload features quite liberally, which is very detrimental to the overall game experience.

Poor camera placement in 3rd person perspective games can also lead to situations where the players don’t see their character or the dangers they must avoid to survive. Brutal viewpoint switches are also likely to confuse the player.

Many games require an observation phase, for instance in boss fights: the player must look at attack patterns to devise a strategy for beating the boss. During such phases, the games should offer the possibility to the player to protect themselves: a spot in the level which is safer, a way to dodge or parry attacks, weaker attacks first, etc. If the game kills the player seconds after the start of a boss fight, without letting the player understanding how not to die instantly, this is unfair. The outcome of that is that the player will look for a walkthrough on the internet, or else just stop playing.

In theory, any game should be winnable in one straight sitting by a skilled gamer.
 A fair game is well-balanced. As a player spends time with the game, they become more and more proficient. To maintain a constant challenge, the game must propose tasks which novice players would find difficult towards the end, or make them entirely optional. In the Metroid games on the GBA, for instance, there is an intricate move called the Shinespark that requires good timing and reflex to pull out. While it can be used to get secret items, it is never required to beat the game. Requiring the player to perform a Shinespark, let alone to chain many of them, in the first scenes of the game would be totally unfair.

Warcraft III - the Frozen Throne, PC, 2003

A fine example of excellent game balance.

Balance is also key in multi-player games. Games like Blizzard’s RTS are known for their excellent balance. While all factions are very different, none is clearly stronger than the other. On the other hand, in Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the playstation, it was possible to play as one of the final bosses in 2-player mode. That was ridiculous: those bosses were immensely stronger than the other fighters.

 Eliminate peaks of difficulty. This should happen during Q&A. Testers are seasoned gamers which can overcome difficult gameplay situations without sweat. But if a tester without a walkthrough cannot pass a scene after 5 tries, then that’s a confirmed difficulty peak, and chances are that average players, too, will have trouble.
 At the end of a game session, the player should have progressed in the game. They should have had the opportunity to improve their status compared to last time. For games which are based on progression, it is frustrating to complete a game session without any gain.

Unfortunately for players, if one game developer gets one of these wrong, chances are they’ll get the other ones wrong too! the resulting frustration is immense and will not only turn the player from the game, but also from games of the same developer, publisher and possibly genre. Not the best thing to include in a game design bible.